Image by: Xavier Arias

Welcome to the new music review where we connect you with some of the best new music spinning on Breakfast, The Daily and Drive programs.

ALBUMS / EP:
The Stroppies – Look Alive! (FEATURE ALBUM)
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Don Bryant – You Make Me Feel
Gum Country – Somewhere
Jae Laffer – The Long Daydream
Minibikes – Freaky Dreams
Roy Ayers – Roy Ayers JID002
Simona Castricum – Panic/Desire

SINGLES:
Ernest Ellis – A Depressed Card Dealer
Mike Polizze – Cheewawa
No Joy – Nothing Will Hurt
RINSE – Trust in Me
Songhoy Blues – Worry
Thibault – Centrelink

“I am naked all the time.” So begins Savages frontwoman Jehnny Beth’s debut solo album, To Live is to Love: an existentialist deep dive into sex, gender, and identity. Savages’ sound was that of classic post-punk: electric guitar, bass, drums, all played loud at a frenetic pace, much like their idols Joy Division and The Raincoats. To Live, however, breathes at a slower pace: Beth distorts her vocals; incorporates piano, saxophone, and glitchy electronics; and breaks up the momentum with spoken word passages (including one by actor Cillian Murphy). The record comes to resemble more closely the post-modern symphonies of Frank Ocean’s Blond and Beyoncé’s Lemonade: records, too, that looked at the intersections of sex and identity through fragmentary and diffuse movements. To Live is not at the level of those two, but its vibrancy and passion – all encompassed by Beth’s presence on the record, which burns with an intensity similar to that of PJ Harvey and Björk – make it a crucial record for these times.

Roy Ayers, the Los Angeles jazz and funk legend, returns at the age of seventy-nine with his first album in nine years, Roy Ayers JID002 (or Jazz is Dead 2). Teaming up with Adrian Younge and A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad, the record is stylish, hip-hop inspired jazz record, with Ayers acting more as a sideman rather the leader we might have hoped. The record is sprinkled with small memories of Ayers’ past: the female chorus on “Synchronize Vibration” singing of the sunrise, recalling Ayers’ famous “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”; the descending synth on “Shadows of the East” alluding to the famous synth lines in Ayers’ catalogue; and even the spoken word finale “African Sounds” reminding us of the frenetic rhythm and dirty harpsichord baselines of his ’80s disco period. Otherwise, Younge and Muhammad offer Ayers space for a more mellow, in-the-pocket, even grimy, sound than we’ve often heard from the vibraphonist. The result is a welcome return from an essential jazz musician of the 20th and 21st centuries.